After a few seconds, I recognize the piles of clutter that make up our bedroom, and I find myself relaxing enough to sleep once more. The confusion isn't panicked, it's just fogginess. I count that as growth--if I had experienced such discombobulation in the past, I would have been a bit short of breath and infused with anxiety. Now, it's more a sense of curiosity.
Dreams don't usually stay with me, unlike my daughter Nina who dreams so prolifically and in so much detail. I'm convinced she could transform some of these dreams into a book of avant garde short stories, if not a screenplay.
This morning when I woke, I had been having one of those dreams where the elements of my day blended together in a strange mix.
In reality, I had spent a leisurely day reviewing the first two episodes of Downton Abbey in anticipation of this evening's episode on Masterpiece Theatre (mind you, I saw the third season earlier this autumn whilst in the U.K., so I know what's going to happen--I just wanted a quick refresher). I had also seen a "news" story on efforts to eradicate the "plague" of Burmese pythons reigning over the Florida Everglades. Finally, I had read a wonderful essay by my friend Lucie Amundsen on the nontraditional beauty she shares with Lady Edith Crawley.
In my dream, I had been exploring South Africa (a nod to my dear friend Helen Mongan-Rallis, a native of South Africa, and my son, Jacob Petersen-Perlman, who had been working on his dissertation research in South Africa this past fall). I was traveling the bush with my bestie, Lady Mary Crawley of Downton Abbey. Lady Edith had just been jilted by that coward Anthony Strallen, and was weeping beneath the veil of her large picture hat in the backseat of the roadster in which we were driving. As if that wasn't sufficiently dramatic, we encountered those pesky pythons in the middle of the South African bush.
Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with the snakes because my husband woke up and told me about his dream. He had come up with an idea for a new game show called "Guess what the cops had for lunch?" Contestants had to match the city where the cops worked with what they were likely to have eaten for their midday meal. For example, Philadelphia? Philly Cheese Steaks, of course! Then it started getting weird. Atlanta? My husband's response was "Fish Sandwich". This of course makes no sense. Atlanta is not a coastal city.
Still...whoever said dreams made sense?
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